Before I Walk On The Water, Put The Money Down
For two weeks after I got booted from Cook’s Electronic Appliances, I sent out a bunch of resumes, but didn’t hear back from anybody. Finally, I saw an ad on CraigsList for a sales job with a nonprofit arts organization. At the bottom of the page, it said, “Don’t bother emailing your resume. Just call and leave a message.”
Not knowing what to expect, I rang the number, and waited until the answering machine picked up. “Hello, my name is John Gregor and I am calling to ask about the sales position. I would like to learn more, so if you can, please call me back. Thanks.”
Ten minutes later, my phone rang. “May I please speak to John Gregor?” said the amiable drawl on the other end.
“This is.”
“Hello, my name is Bill Storm, and I am calling on behalf of ArtSales, Incorporated. You just left a message about the ad on CraigsList.”
“Yes,” I said smiling. “Yes, I did.”
“All right. Do you mind if we think of this conversation as the interview?”
I smiled. “It’s your world, boss,” I said.
“Well, fantastic,” said Bill. “See, some people I talk to get nervous when I mention that word.”
“I guess. We’re only talking on the phone, so at least I don’t have to worry about how I look.”
“Naturally, and we keep it pretty casual in the sales room, just F.Y.I. Long as you look halfway decent and don’t smell bad, we’re cool.”
“Sounds all right by me, Bill.”
“So anyway, I wanted to tell you that you have a really good phone voice.”
I laughed a little. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Do you have any sales and/or customer service experience?”
“Well, that’s pretty much all the jobs I have worked in my life.”
“O.K., I like what I hear. How do you rate yourself as a salesman?”
“Well, I’d say about an eight or a nine, but I have to believe in what I’m selling, otherwise what’s the point?”
“So what you’re saying is that you wouldn’t bulls*** a customer.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I like the way you think, John, and I gotta tell you, I couldn’t agree more. Rest assured, you will have no trouble believing in what you are selling. I guarantee that.”
“So what does this job entail? What are we going to be selling?”
“Basically, ArtSales, the company that I work for, was founded in Toronto in 1982, and they partner with performing arts organizations to sell subscriptions to patrons by telephone.”
“You mean like telemarketing?”
“Yes, but this isn’t cold calling. The information we get about the people we call comes from the client. In other words, these people have recently bought tickets to the performances, and some of the people we will be calling will have subscribed to a whole season. That means that they are familiar with the organization and in some cases, they already have a vested interest.”
“That sounds good. How long have you been doing this?”
“Well, I have been working as a salesman since I was discharged from the army in ’92, and I’ve been with ArtSales for ten years now. I have run call rooms in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Cleveland, Ohio. I came out here in 2005, and I ran a campaign for StageWorks over in Menlo Park.”
“Uh-huh. Are you from California, originally?”
“No, I’m from Ohio.”
“Oh, O.K. Whereabouts?”
“Outside of Columbus. What about you?”
“Oh, I was born in New Haven, Connecticut.”
“Right on,” said Bill.
“Anyway, is this job hourly or commission-based?”
“You will get an hourly wage of $8.25 per hour, but the catch is, you have to make sales. For one thing, you have to justify your hourly, and for another, if you don’t get any sales, you’re not going to be happy with your paycheck.”
“I gotcha.”
“But don’t worry. My top callers generally end up making about fifteen to seventeen dollars an hour or more, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “So what organization are we going to be selling subscriptions for?”
“American Musical Theater of San Jose. They are one of the premier arts organizations in the South Bay and they put on some amazing shows.”
“O.K.”
“Have you seen a lot of musicals?”
“Some. My mother used to take us to shows at the Shubert in New Haven when I was younger, and I saw stuff like Carousel, Man of La Mancha, South Pacific and a couple other things. It’s been a long time, though…”
“Well, that’s all right. From what I can tell, it seems like you’re aware of these shows enough to appreciate them, and that can only help you as far as selling them is concerned.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Well, in that case, John, I’d like to go ahead and say welcome aboard. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said. “When do we start?”
“Well, I want to wait until I hear back from a couple more people, so I’ll let you know over the weekend when to come by.”
“And where will we be working?”
“The office is located at 1717 Technology Drive, right near the airport.”
“O.K.,” I said.
“It was a pleasure talking to you, John. I’ll be sure to get in touch with you as soon as all the details are squared away.”
“Sounds good to me, Bill,” I said with a grin. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” said Bill. “I’ll talk to you in a few days.”
“All right,” I said. “Bye.”
Sure enough, Bill got in touch with me that weekend and said for me to come to the building on the following Wednesday at four in the afternoon.
On Wednesday, I rode to the building arriving at five to four and saw a sign posted near the entrance:
SUBSCRIPTIONS UPSTAIRS
I climbed the stairs, only to discover a call room, cubicles and all, but not a soul around. I shrugged my shoulders and walked back down to the ground floor, trusting that Bill Storm would arrive any minute. I plopped down in one of the plush chairs and buried my nose in my copy of Cropper’s Cabin to mitigate the wait.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a somewhat pudgy man of medium height emerge from the restroom and walk over to the soda machine. He had shoulder-length blond hair and was dressed in a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and denim shorts. Almost right after I took my eye off him, I heard the sound of a dollar being fed into the machine, followed by another. After several clicks of a button, there was a series of almighty thuds. I closed my book, keeping a finger between the pages to mark my place and observed him as he set upon the machine with fist, heel of hand and foot. After about a minute, he paused, uttering a sighing growl of “God dammit!”
Right then and there, I jolted for recognizing his voice. At the time that I had spoken to him on the phone, I had imagined somebody who looked a little more… professional, I guess. My image of him had been blown, but to be sure, it sure was a relief.
“Hey,” I said as he stopped hammering the machine and turned toward me. “There might be a number to call on the machine.”
“Thanks, brother,” he said, and took his cell phone out of his pocket. He found the number, dialed it, and stepped outside for a cigarette. I followed him to have one of my own.
“Yeah,” he said, speaking on his phone. “There is a problem, as a matter of fact. f***in’ machine ate my money.”
I grinned as I lit up, knowing that it would be impossible for us not to get along.
After he gave the soda machine company his name and contact information, he hung up his phone and turned to me. “You here for the subscription campaign?”
“Yeah. I’m John Gregor. Are you Bill Storm?”
“Sure am,” he said, shaking my hand. “Pleased to meet you, Johnny.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty and handed it to me. “Do me a favor? Go to the 7-Eleven, get me a Dew and a pack of smokes and a little somethin’ for yourself if you want. Just bring me back my change.”
“Is that your brand?” I asked, pointing to the pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights in his hand.
“Sure is,” he said.
“All right. I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll be upstairs in the subscriptions office,” said Bill. I gave him the thumbs-up and headed for my bicycle.
By the time I got back, the others had arrived. There was Jocelyn Sorrels, a petite good-looking girl from Newcastle, England with reddish-brown hair who was finishing up a history degree at San Jose State. Doug Gerard, a tall man with dark hair and eyes who looked to be about ten years older me, came from Vancouver and had been working sales and marketing jobs most of his life. Aracely Roman, a bespectacled girl of about twenty-one with dark hair, glassy brown eyes and a lazy smile, was from Santa Clara. Marcus Yakowicz, who was in his middle fifties, originally came from Chicago, Illinois.
After I handed Bill his change, cigarettes and Mountain Dew, he thanked me and gave me some forms to fill out, along with a pen. I took a seat at one of the desks with the Coke and Snickers bar I had bought, worked my way through the documents, and passed them back to Bill. Once everybody was done with their paperwork, Bill had each of us offer a brief introduction to everybody else.
“All right,” said Bill. He walked over to his desk, picked up a stack of American Musical Theater of San Jose brochures and began to pass them out. “It’s nice to meet everybody, and now I’m going to give you the gist of what today is about. We won’t be getting on the phone just yet, because I just want to give everybody a chance to get on the same page, so that come tomorrow, when we actually get on the phone, we will be firing on all cylinders. You will, however, be paid for your time here.”
“So, in other words, today you are going to be giving us a lot of specialized high-intensity training,” I said with a subtle grin. Everybody began to laugh as Bill smiled.
“You can bet that I’ll be giving all of you a lot of specialized high-intensity training,” said Bill. “And I trust that every single one of you will take your specialized high-intensity training seriously, or you will end up in deep specialized high-intensity training.” He gave me a wink while everybody had another chuckle.
“Anyway,” said Bill, “I’ll tell you a little bit about the organization that we will be selling subscriptions for. American Musical Theater of San Jose is a nonprofit organization that has been around since the 1930s and has put together some very popular and amazing shows through the years.”
As I listened to Bill, I opened the brochure and began to peruse it. The shows planned for American Musical Theater of San Jose’s 2008-2009 season that the company itself was producing were The Full Monty, Flower Drum Song, Tarzan, as adapted from the Disney movie, and 42nd Street. In addition to these performances, American Musical Theater of San Jose would host a touring production of Avenue Q, which was due to open in early March.
“I’m sure that you can see that these shows will sell themselves,” said Bill, picking up a dry-erase marker and walking over to the whiteboard. “What we do is generate interest, get the patron excited, build value and create urgency.” He wrote the words “INTEREST,” “EXCITEMENT,” “VALUE” and “URGENCY” on the board in big block capital letters. “Basically, closing a deal is a three-step process,” he explained, drawing a crude picture of a switch and a lightbulb on the board with a line connecting the two. “You have your intro, which is turning on the switch. You have your meat and potatoes, which in this case is the season description, and that’s the current that flows from the switch, and this basically means creating interest, excitement and urgency.” He drew a line with tight, jagged squiggles over the line between the switch and the bulb. “In other words, not only will you be selling shows, you will also be selling the sizzle. And last, but certainly not least, you have the close, which is when the electricity hits the bulb and makes it light up.” He drew a halo of rays around the bulb.
He gathered together a stack of clipboards with a bunch of clear plastic sleeves containing pieces of paper with our introduction, the season description, and rebuttals to any objections we would encounter printed on them, and began to pass them around. “This is the script. As you see, you have your introduction, your season description, and the objection responses are written so that they lead you right back to the close. Basically, this script is designed to sell the sizzle. When you are on the phone, don’t get too creative. Just stick to the script, and everything will be all right.
“Anyway, what we are going to do now is split up into groups of two, and since there are five of you, I will be working with one of you personally to make things even and we will rotate around so that each of you works with me. We will do the intro, the season description, and work on overcoming objections. One person will be the caller, the other will be the patron, and you both will take turns. Sound good?”
We paired off and began to work our way through the script. Every so often, Bill rearranged the groupings so that he could train each one of us, then gave us a crash course as to how to mark the lead sheets when we finished a call. At a glance, the work seemed easy and the shows sounded appealing, so by the time training was over, I felt confident that I had landed a job that I could make work.
The next day, as soon as everybody showed up, Bill called a staff meeting. As soon as he had everybody’s attention, he lifted the lid from the cardboard carton on the floor and took out a stack of pink sheets of paper. “These are renewal leads,” he said. “These are people who have not yet renewed their subscriptions. Ninety-five per cent of the time, these people buy. We will be calling some of these later today, but just to practice and get into the rhythm of things, we will be calling some recent single ticket buyer leads. Sound good?”
Everybody nodded in assent. “Excellent,” said Bill. “There’s a script and a callback folder at each of your desks. Come see me for leads, and let’s get on the phone. Smile and dial.”
I took a couple minutes to reread the script, and then picked up the phone and started dialing. Nobody answered the first five calls I made, but soon enough, I was able to get a line on somebody.
“Hello, is this Mr. Parker?” I asked.
“Speaking,” said Mr. Parker.
“This is John Gregor from American Musical Theater of San Jose, the company that brought Cabaret to the Center For The Performing Arts. I’d love to ask, how did you enjoy the performance?”
Already I felt uncomfortable saying that. It just sounded so smarmy and made me feel like a kiss-ass.
“Cabaret?” asked Mr. Parker. “It was solid. I enjoyed it.”
“Fantastic,” I said, disarmed by Mr. Parker’s positive feedback. “I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed our performance of Cabaret, and I’m calling to tell you about American Musical Theater of San Jose’s exciting new season for 2008 and 2009! We will be beginning in September with…”
Mr. Parker cut me off. “Do you have a brochure you can send me, John?” he asked.
“We do have a brochure, and we designed it to provide as much information as possible. But the problem with that is, once a brochure is printed, it immediately becomes out of date. And another interesting and surprising fact is that American Musical Theater of San Jose polled its patrons and found that the majority of them preferred live person to person help. And that’s where I come in, Mr. Parker. You can think of me as your live brochure. Do you have any questions?”
“Not at the moment,” said Mr. Parker, and cleared his throat. “It’s just that I am a visual person, and I like to look at things and read about things. Naturally, for example, if you had called me while I was in front of a computer I would have punched your information into Google and followed along with you.”
“So it sounds as though you’re interested in the shows.”
“Well, I am indeed interested in learning more, and I would love to discuss this with you further, but unfortunately I am on my way to a meeting in Redwood City…”
“Oh, my! Did I catch you while you were driving?”
“Yeah, but it’s all right, I have my hands free headset.”
“Oh, O.K.,” I said, sneaking a discreet sigh of relief.
“What did you say the organization’s name was?”
“American Musical Theater of San Jose.”
“I’ll look you guys up on the internet next chance I get.”
“Did you still want the brochure?”
“Definitely. That’ll come in handy when I sit down and talk about it with my wife.”
“Sounds good.”
“At any rate, John, I have to let you go because I am getting close to my destination. Be sure to get in touch with me next week. Don’t forget, now.”
“You bet, Mr. Parker.”
“Thanks for calling, John.”
“Thanks, yourself,” I said with a hopeful grin. “Take care now.”
“Bye.”
I hung up the phone and wrote “send brochure” on Mr. Parker’s data sheet, walked over to Bill’s desk and handed him the lead. “He says he wants a brochure,” I said.
Bill took the lead from me and looked at it. “All right,” he said, and fetched an envelope and a brochure from his desk drawers. As soon as the envelope was filled, addressed, sealed and stamped, he turned back to me. “You think you could come outside for a minute?” he asked. “I want to talk to you.”
“Did I do anything wrong?” I asked, beginning to feel a prickle of apprehension.
“No, not at all,” said Bill, smiling as he set the lead on his desk. “I just want to give you a couple of pointers.”
“Oh,” I said, grinning a little myself and laughing for my relief that I was not in trouble.
Bill picked up the pack of cigarettes on his desk and nodded toward the door. “C’mon,” he said.
We stepped outside. Bill offered me one of his cigarettes and we each lit up. “It sounded like that one was a bit of a struggle for you,” said Bill.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said, taking a puff.
“Well, you were getting objections right at your intro,” said Bill, “and I know that that’s frustrating as all get-out, so what I want to suggest – and I wish that I put this in the script – is for you to ask everybody whether or not it’s a good time to talk. Just like this: ‘Hello, Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, this is John Gregor, calling from American Musical Theater of San Jose, the company that brought Sweet Charity to the Center for the Performing Arts. Is this a good time to discuss the upcoming 2008-2009 season?’ I guarantee you that you will find more people willing to buy just like that.” Bill snapped his fingers.
“Sounds easy enough,” I said, grinning.
“All right,” said Bill. “I’ll get that changed up as quickly as possible so that way, we can all make more money.”
As soon as we were done smoking, Bill and I walked back inside. As soon as we passed his desk, he handed Mr. Parker’s data sheet back to me. “Put this in your callback folder,” he said.
I took Bill’s advice, and sure enough, the work became even easier in an instant. Best of all, I ended up closing the first deal of the campaign.
“I dunno, John,” said Ana Orozco. “$300 per person, so that’s seventy-five a ticket…”
“Well, Mrs. Orozco, those prices are for the front of the house, and because these seats are in high demand, people are usually willing to pay more.”
“Yeah, that’s usually how it works. Of course, we like the back of the balcony. The view is still really good and you can hear better. It’s more clear.”
“Well, Mrs. Orozco, you’ll be pleased to know that for one person to see all four shows and sit in the back of the balcony, it’s only $79 to attend. How many seats would you need?”
“Now, for a little more than what it would cost for one person to sit right by the stage, I can take my whole family. I’d like four.”
“I’d also like to mention that being a subscriber entitles you to get advance tickets for special performances not included in the regular season subscription packages. For example, we have Avenue Q coming in March, and for one person to see Avenue Q and be seated in your preferred section it would only be twenty dollars to attend. How many seats will you need?”
“I’d like four for Avenue Q,” said Mrs. Orozco.
I took my calculator and tallied up the sum. “Mrs. Orozco, your total so far is four hundred, sixteen dollars for all four people for all five shows, all fees included. I would like to ask, being that American Musical Theater of San Jose is a non-profit organization and as such its production costs are largely covered by patron contributions. Would you be interested in adding a donation to your order?”
“Uhh… Why not? Bring the total to an even five hundred.”
“I thank you very much, Mrs. Orozco. Will it be Visa, MasterCard or American Express?”
Once I was off the phone and had crossed the Ts and dotted the Is, I walked over to Bill’s desk and handed him the order. “Good job, Johnny Boy,” said Bill, smiling with pride. “Put that up on the board with your initials and ring that bell!”
Everybody in the room made at least one sale from the single ticket buyer leads. Aracely’s numbers were the highest, with a grand total of $1100 between subscriptions and donations. Bill, feeling very pleased, said for us to take a fifteen-minute break halfway through the shift. As soon as everybody was back, he picked up a bunch of pink colored leads. “These are renewal leads. We have to very careful not to burn these leads, so we have to be on our best behavior when we call these people. They have a vested interest, so our reputation is at stake big time. Ya trackin’ me?”
We all nodded.
“Good,” said Bill. “I also would like to mention that we have a bit of a challenge. See, because American Musical Theater of San Jose was late signing the contract, we have to play catch up. These are people who missed the renewal deadline, so their seats have been released. This means we have to create urgency. And how do we create urgency, ladies and gentlemen? By telling them that the seats we have available today will not be the same seats we have available tomorrow. Repeat after me: the seats we have available today…”
“The seats we have available today…”
“…will not be the same seats we have available tomorrow.”
“…will not be the same seats we have available tomorrow.”
“Again,” said Bill, and led the chant.
“The seats we have available today will not be the same seats we have available tomorrow.”
“One more time!”
“The seats we have available today will not be the same seats we have available tomorrow.”
“Um, Bill,” said Jocelyn with a modest but ironic smile as she raised her hand, “is this a marketing room or a new religious cult?”
“We don’t discuss religion or politics in the workplace,” said Bill with a grin, winking at Jocelyn while everybody laughed. “Anyway, I just want to make sure it sticks in your mind when you’re on the phone, because how we do with these renewal leads depends upon creating that urgency. So can y’all say it one more time?”
“The seats we have available today will not be the same seats we have available tomorrow.”
“That’s good schneikes. Now let’s get on the phone! Praise God and pass the ammunition!”
“I thought you said no discussing politics or religion,” said Jocelyn, grinning and narrowing her eyes in mocking suspicion as everybody else laughed again.
“Listen smartass, right now I am Jesus and this is my compound,” said Bill, giggling with us all. “Now as for y’all, you shall go forth, you shall conquer, and you shall achieve nothing short of complete and absolute victory, because G** damn it, I command it! Now get on the f***ing phone and make some f***ing money!”
Renewals turned out to be almost as much of a challenge as the single ticket buyers. For a little while, it seemed as though these people had missed the deadline for any one of a number of possible legitimate reasons – short on money, grieving over a death in the family, schedule too full, moving away, you name it. But I still was able to close a couple, and when I handed Bill the order form for my second renewal sale, he grabbed me by both biceps, looked at me grinning from ear to ear, eyes like dinner plates, and said, “Son, you are a rockstar!”
I giggled, feeling like one for sure. That night I pulled down fifteen hundred between single ticket buyers and by the end of that week, I had sold a little over two grand worth of tickets.
But come Monday, I began to learn the hard way that direct sales is a line of work with peaks and valleys, and steep and unpredictable trajectories for each. In other words, one day you’re Bill Gates, and the next day you’re Willy Loman. It doesn’t matter how what kind of clever strategy or spiel you have down pat.
I was working a stack of people who bought tickets to see The Lion King. It took a bit of effort to keep myself from getting discouraged when my own contact rate was practically nil compared to the rest of the room. This went on for about forty-five minutes before I was able to get somebody on the phone.
“Hello?”
“Is there a Raquel Thanh available?”
“Speaking.”
“Hello, my name is John Gregor and I’m calling from American Musical Theater of San Jose, the company that brought The Lion King to the Center for the Performing Arts. Is this a good time to talk?”
“I’d be happy to talk, but this is not a good time to talk. Can you call me next week sometime?”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Excellent. Talk to you soon.”
“Thanks.”
“Bye.”
Feeling hopeful, I dialed again.
“Hello.”
“Hello, is this Marcy Butler?”
“That depends. Who is this?”
“My name is John Gregor, and I’m calling from American Musical Theater of San Jose, the…”
“Hold it. Are you looking to sell me a subscription?”
“Well, this is a courtesy call to inform you about our 2008-2009 season and…”
“I know about the season. I went to see The Lion King with my little cousin and we had a great time. But unfortunately, I am a broke college student, and I will not even be able to afford balcony seats.”
“I do understand. Perhaps you might know people in your family or your circle of friends who might be interested. If you do, I’d love to get in touch with them and give them the same information I am meant to share with you.”
“Um, I actually don’t feel comfortable giving out that information, and honestly, I definitely hope to catch more of your shows, but because I have practically no money right now, I am going to catch shows as they come, all right? Anyway, there is no way I can be of any help to you at this time, but I wish you the best. Goodbye.”
After she hung up on me, I took a deep breath and moved on to the next one.
“Hello, Mr. Navarro, this is John Gregor from American Musical Theater…”
“Are you aware that we are on the Do Not Call list?”
“I am sorry. I was not informed of that, Mr. Navarro.”
“Well you know why they call it the Do Not Call list, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, and I will take your name off our list.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Navarro, his tone becoming a little more severe. “If you call me again, I will report you. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, placing a check mark on the lead next to “Remove From List.”
For the next ten minutes, that was what I dealt with, and most of them were downright rude. After somebody hung up on me right after I identified myself and asked whether or not it was a good time, I flung my headset off, grabbed my smokes and stormed out of the room, shivering with anger.
Bill followed me outside, lighting up a cigarette of his own. “You O.K., Johnny Boy? You’re looking a little steamed.”
“Oh my God, where did these people come from?!”
“What leads you callin’?”
“Lion King.”
“Really,” said Bill, surprised jets of smoke shooting out of his mouth and nose. “Huh. I’ll be damned. You’d figure they’d be nice because they have kids.”
“I feel sorry for those kids,” I said with a small, bitter snort.
Bill giggled. “Well, hang in there,” he said. “It’s still early in the week. Maybe you should try calling something else when you go back inside. Mix it up a little.”
I took a drag from my cigarette. “Yeah, all right. Couldn’t hurt.”
As soon as I was done smoking, I tossed the end of my cigarette away and said, “Well, I guess I’d better get back to those SOBs.” I jolted with fake contrition at my intentional Freudian slip. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean, STBs. STBs.”
Bill began to giggle as I headed toward the door.
I went back inside, and instead of calling Lion King leads, I switched to soliciting the folks who attended The King And I. But they yielded no returns either.
For the next three days, I didn’t get a single sale, and this made me more and more jumpy. The more I tried to hide it, the worse the jitters became. My palms would sweat, my mouth would run dry, I’d be short of breath, and my temples would throb.
“Soasyoucanseewehaveaterrificseasonplannedandforonlyonepersontoattendallfourshowsandsitbythefrontofthestageit’sonlythreehundreddollars. Howmanyseatswillyouneed?”
Needless to say, that guaranteed that they wouldn’t buy.
“You’re talking too fast,” said Bill when he took me aside. “You’re reading the script and that’s good, but you’re giving them too much too soon. Give them at least a couple seconds to digest the information so that they can be better educated about the season. And G** damn it, take a f***ing deep breath once in a while, for Christ’s sake! You can’t be s***ting bricks on the phone!”
But just before last call on Friday, I closed one for three hundred. Two seats in Orchestra Ring. It was just enough to put us over our $3000 goal for the day. Not too shabby.
Bill took me aside after I handed him the sale. “Good job, Johnny Boy,” he said. “This is what I want to see. You can do this. Just stick to the script, and keep in mind that in this business, you have good days and bad days. You can’t let the patrons get to you, or you’re going to take yourself right out of the game. Got it?”
“I got it,” I said.
“Thanks, Johnny Boy. And good job.” He clapped me on the shoulder and turned to everyone else in the room. “All right, folks, we hit goal, so last call.”
“Just a tic, Bill,” said Jocelyn. “I’m getting a credit card number.”
“All right, Jocelyn, you do what you gotta do. The rest of you can go if you want. Have a good weekend.”
As I was unlocking my bike, Aracely came up to me. “Hey Johnny, you doing anything right now?”
“No,” I said as I attached the lock to my bike’s frame.
“Did you wanna kick it for a while?”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“Just chill, listen to music… whatever.”
“Sure. Where do you live?”
“Santa Clara.”
“I’ve got my bike. Whereabouts in Santa Clara?”
“It’s cool. I can fit your bike in my car.”
“Great.”
I loaded my bicycle into the back of Aracely’s Toyota station wagon and we drove to her apartment just off of the Camino Real. As soon as we opened the door, we were greeted by a salt-and-pepper colored Tibetan terrier who was as anxious as he was friendly, and he reared up, offered a couple of friendly barks and began pawing me on the thighs and knees, grinning with his mouth open wide.
“Hitch, chill,” said Aracely. “Get down, boy!” She turned to me. “Don’t worry, he’s really friendly, and he loves meeting new people.”
“I see,” I said, scratching him between the ears. “How old is Hitch?”
“He’s four and a half. He’ll never grow up, though.” Aracely began to giggle a little. “He’s such a big baby.” She stooped down to pet him, telling him, “Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” in a playful, adoring voice. “Are you hungry puppy? Are you a hungry puppy?”
Hitch whined a little and gave a pleading, affirmative bark.
She led Hitch toward the kitchen, prepared a dish of dog food for Hitch and some gyoza dumplings for us, complete with dipping sauce. After setting the food on the living room table, she returned to the kitchen to fetch us each a soda, and then put some reggae music on her stereo. We feasted on the dumplings and talked about any old thing, and once we had finished eating, Aracely asked me, “Johnny, by any chance, do you smoke weed?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Did you wanna smoke?”
I grinned at her. “That would be fantastic.”
Aracely went to her bedroom, fetching a bag of marijuana and a packet of Zig Zag rolling papers. She took a magazine from the rack next to the living room table, set it in front of her and crafted one of the most perfect joints I had ever seen, complete with a cardboard crutch at the end. As soon as she finished, she handed it to me. “Here, Johnny,” she said.
I lit the joint and we passed it back and forth, talking about anything, our conversation cycling between the profound and the ridiculous. To be sure, there never was any plans or hope for romance on my part. Besides, I never thought it was a good idea to date coworkers. Too risky. Then again, I cannot deny how awesome it was to have a nice, relaxing smoke after a pretty trying work week.
“I like you when you’re baked,” said Aracely with a quiet, sluggish giggle. “You’re all laid back and s***.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Dude, I don’t know about you, but I think you should smoke before you get on the phone. You were sounding hella nervous this past week.”
I thought for a minute and smiled. “You know, you’re probably right.”
Aracely laughed. “See, that’s why I made hella sales. And the s*** ain’t that difficult. All you gotta do is smile, dial, read and talk, right?”
“True,” I said, nodding my head. I paused for a short spell and asked, “Hey, can I buy some of that s*** from you?”
“Tell you what,” said Aracely taking a quick glance toward the kitchen. “If you do the dishes, I’ll spot you a couple grams.”
“Sold,” I said with a grin.
Photograph by James Conrad.
Illustration by Peter Conrad.
Copperhead is available as an ebook that can be purchased from Barnes & Noble or Amazon and downloaded to your Nook or Kindle.
For more artwork by Peter Conrad, visit Attempted Not Known and Vidrio Cafe.
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